Annabel
Chong, whose real name is Grace Quek, began a trend in porn
videos four years ago by having sex with 251 men for a film called The World's Biggest Gangbang. It is the best-selling porn video of all time. She graduated from the
University of Southern California with a G.P.A. of 3.7, and is now twenty-six years old. She
continues to star in porn movies and also directs her own. She first spoke with Amy Goodman at the
Sundance film festival, where the documentary Sex: The Annabel Chong Story premiered.
WHAT WAS THE ORIGIN OF THE WORLD'S BIGGEST GANGBANG? WHOSE IDEA WAS IT?
John Bowen, the owner of the company who used to direct my videos. I basically challenged him to come up with a crazy idea for me to do and he came up with The World's Biggest Gangbang. I thought it was very amusing. When he first told me I just laughed. And I thought about it for a while and I'm like, you know, "Hey let's do it." During that time a friend of mine coincidentally mentioned to me something about the Roman empress Messelina, who apparently invited the entire town of Rome to have sex with her. It was a challenge to the top prostitute of Rome, and Messelina apparently won. So, I kind of had that idea in mind, and that's why the entire video had this bizarre Roman theme that looked really cheesy.
WHAT DO YOU THINK MOTIVATED MESSELINA TO DO IT?
Raw ego, I guess, total abuse of power. Too much money. [Laughs]
ARE THOSE THE REASONS THAT MOTIVATED YOU?
I guess there is an element of that, but for me a lot of it's humor, because there's this stereotype of the stud who fucks anything that moves and this is a parody of what men are supposed to be like.
I'M CURIOUS HOW MANY GANGBANG VIDEOS THERE HAVE BEEN IN PORN HISTORY?
To my knowledge mine was the first on such a grand scale, though before that, ten years ago in the '80s there was a madam working in Amsterdam who took 125 men. But to my knowledge that event was not captured on video.
WILL YOU EXPLAIN THE PROCESS OF YOUR GANGBANG? START WITH HOW MANY MEN YOU TOOK AT A TIME.
The plan was five at a time for ten minutes, but what eventually happened was that if the guys were good and strong, they'd let them go on for longer than ten minutes. If the guys were kind of limp and they weren't able to get into it they would move them on.
WHAT COUNTED AS PENETRATION?
They didn't have to penetrate me. It's just five guys on the stage and when they go off the stage it counts as five.
OH, OKAY, SO WHAT WAS A TRADITIONAL FIVE GUY SET-UP?
Most of it would be them taking turns trying to get hard and the first person who gets hard would have sex with me and then I would see another guy getting hard and I'd point to him and say, "Your turn now." And I was really surprised that the guys were very polite about taking turns; they didn't fight on stage, things did not get unpleasant or pushy. That was one of my main concerns, that a fight would break out and things would get ugly.
SO ONE PERSON WOULD PENETRATE AT A TIME?
That's right.
DID EACH MAN HAVE TO HAVE AN ORGASM TO COUNT?
No, there was a time limit. They did not have to finish at all.
HOW MANY DID FINISH?
Probably about 30 percent. We recycled the guys, actually, because some of them the first time they went out they didn't manage to do it because they were nervous, and maybe they managed to do it the second time.
SO, A LOT OF THEM TOOK TWO TURNS.
Yeah. Everybody got to go.
WERE THERE ACTUALLY 300 MEN THERE?
No, there wasn't. Okay, at mine there was slightly less than 100 men.
HOW COME THE MEN ALL HAD TO BE NAKED WHILE THEY WERE WAITING IN LINE?
They were all naked because we wanted to prevent them from carrying concealed weapons. I wanted to prevent the situation of having an anti-porn guy who thinks this is really depraved coming out with a pistol and, like, blowing my brains out. Yeah, that wouldn't be good. And also we had this idea that the man should be naked because the girl is naked.
WHEN BOWEN FIRST SUGGESTED TO YOU THE IDEA OF HAVING SEX WITH 300 MEN, WHAT WERE YOUR CONCERNS?
Well, safety to begin with. I was concerned that it should be, you know, a calculated risk. I mean, there is of course a risk involved, but I wanted to minimize that risk and I want to know exactly what my risks are. So we discussed security. At some point he did mention to me that in order to sell this video to Europe I'd have to do it without condoms and I said, "No way, it's condoms only."
HE TRIED THAT?
He did try. And I basically said "No," and he's like, "All right, all right, that's fine."
DID EVERYONE WEAR CONDOMS?
No, we had some professionals there and those were the bad old days of porn when they never wore condoms. People were tested but they never wore condoms, whereas now it's mainly condoms only, ever since that whole incident with Mark Wallace giving HIV to a couple of girls.
THE PROS DIDN'T WEAR THEM BUT EVERYONE ELSE WORE THEM THE WHOLE TIME?
Yeah.
EVEN DURING ORGASM?
They took them off when they were coming. But they didn't come inside me. The thing about porn is that they want everything to be visible so the internal cum shot is just sort of pointless. It's this really bizarre idea of sex, where it's not sex for the purpose of pleasure, but sex for the purposes of visibility.
IF I WERE TO JUST ASK YOU SIMPLY WHAT HAPPENED THAT DAY. . .
I guess the only word I could use to describe the event is that it was completely surreal. It was really bizarre watching so many naked men, nervous naked men in one place at the same time. In a very sick sort of way, it was kind of erotic, but I emphasize in a very sick sort of way. On the whole, I think I am glad I didn't sleep through the entire event. Because I went into it for the experience and if I slept through it, it would be kind of a waste, wouldn't it?
WAS THERE A DANGER OF SLEEPING THROUGH IT?
I heard stories about girls who did it after me how some of them were on valium or just lying there looking bored. By falling asleep I mean just mentally switching off. But I personally believe that to do something like that you have to have your wits about you to make sure that everything's going right. As opposed to just tuning out and spreading one's legs. Yeah, that would be kind of dangerous.
DID YOU EVER GET ANNOYED OR TICKED OFF AT MEN WHO WERE DOING THINGS ALL WRONG OR . . . ?
No. Well, I saw these people as my guests and I wanted to keep the party atmosphere going, so when something happened I would tell them in a nice sort of way, or say, "Excuse me, I just need a little break," you know, and have the security guards handle it. I prefer to avoid direct confrontation like that. I developed some hand signals with one of the security guards there to say, "This guy's a bit rough," or, "This guy right here is refusing to put on his condom."
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